HELP! Sanke Coupler Leaking - Newbie

Hi, so i am new to kegging with Sanke Couplers. Tonight I transfered my Chimay Red clone to the 1/6 keg and pitched priming sugar and yeast to re-ferment in the keg. The Sanke keg is used but was still holding pressure when i got it. I have since dissassembled, cleaned and bought a brand new coupler. So heres my problem, after transfering my beer I re-inserted the spear and hooked up the coupler. I hit it with about 10 PSI of C02. I wanted to remove the coupler and let it sit for 2-3 weeks to re-ferment/carbonate naturally. When I twisted the coupler to remove it, the beer started pouring/dumping out of the top. Needless to say it made a huge mess inside my fermentation chamber. I quickly twisted the coupler back on and left the handle in the up position. My question is, what happened? did I do somthing wrong? shouldn't the pressure have sealed the spear valve, making it safe to remove the coupler? Is this a common newbie error? I don't know what to do, I hope the beer isnt ruined? Should I abandon the Sanke keg and transfer to my 5 gal corney keg? I was really excited to start using Sanke kegs "D" style. I tried searching on this site but couldnt really come across anyone with a similar experience. Any help would greatly be appreciated!

 

Did you have the handle in the up position when you removed the coupler?

One thing you could try is venting the pressure from the keg, so you can remove the coupler and look at the valve on the keg to see if there is something preventing it from sealing.

 

Hi Carros thanks for you response. Yes I did have the handle in the up position. I basically had the coupler off for a few short seconds. Beer was welling up through the spear ball valve. I didn't wait around to see if it was going to stop. I basically geeked and twisted the coupler back on. Don't you have to have the tap handle in the down position to release any pressure? One thing I'm thinking is, could I possibly have too much liquid volume in the snake keg? As of this morning the keg seems stable, no leaks with the coupler attached, handle up position. I did try This relief valve, but there was no pressure. I'm guessing cuz the handle is in the up position.

 

Yeah the handle has to be down for the pressure release valve to work. I am not sure about the possibility of there being too much liquid in the keg, I haven’t been using sankey kegs very long myself and haven’t run into any issues like that yet. I would probably try venting the pressure and looking at the ball valve to make sure there isn’t something blocking it. Otherwise maybe someone that has more experience using these kegs can give a suggestion.

 

Let me preface this by saying the beer is safe! Now transferred into my Corny Keg. Looks like I found the culprit. This c02 valve/gasket seems to be dry rotted. Note the inner ring on the right is supposed to be one piece fused/formed/melted, whatever around the metal valve seat. I hope some people find this article helpful. From now on, lesson learned, as part of my keg cleaning sanitation process I will be sure to remove and fully disassemble Sanky valve spears.

 

Sorry to dig up this old thread, but I'm trying to clean out an old keg for use and was wondering how you get the check valve out? I tried gently prying it out with a screw driver, but I was worried it might damage it. Any help would be awesome, I have a bunch I need to do this too.

 

Yup, this is exactly where I'm stuck right now: trying to get that little black plastic/rubber ball-seal out of the end of the spear.

Any hints about how to deal with stuck-hard ones would be greatly appreciated.